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1.
Henry falls asleep some time after midnight.
It’s not the dramatic kind of sick. No fever high enough to panic, no trip to the ER. Just enough to make him miserable. Congested, flushed, worn thin by coughing fits that leave him clinging to the edge of sleep like it might slip away if he lets go.
Emma stays because it feels like the right thing to do. Not because Regina asks. Because she didn’t.
She moves through the house with a quiet efficiency she wouldn’t have had months ago. The kind that feels like familiarity rather than permission. She makes sure there’s extra water on the nightstand. The humidifier adjusted. Medicine lined up in neat, measured doses like a small, careful promise.
She presses the back of her hand to Henry’s forehead one last time before stepping back. She’s suddenly aware of herself in the room- how much space she’s taking up, how easily she could step back out of it.
“He should be okay,” Regina says softly.
Emma nods. “I can head out if you want. I mean- I’m good to go. He’s asleep.” She says it casually, like it’s already decided. Like she hasn’t been watching Regina from the corner of her eye, waiting for something, anything that tells her which way this is supposed to go.
She waits, heart doing something stupid, like it expects an answer it already knows better than to hope for.
Regina looks at her then. Regarding her carefully. As if she's trying to decide what Emma already knows.
“You don’t have to,” she says.
Emma blinks. “I know.”
Silence falls around them. The house settles around them. The old wood creaking, the low hum of the humidifier filling the space where something else might have been said.
Regina inclines her head toward the hallway. “The guest room is ready.”
Of course it is. Emma almost laughs.
“Okay,” she says instead.
Regina hands her a folded blanket on the way past, fingers brushing Emma’s wrist for half a second longer than necessary. Or maybe exactly as long as necessary. Emma can’t tell anymore. She's not really sure when the line between friends and something else started to blur. She only knows that it has and neither of one has been willing to name it yet.
“Thank you,” Emma says.
Regina nods once, already retreating back to her bedroom, already back behind the lines she draws so carefully around herself.
Emma strips down to her tank top and underwear once she reaches the guest bedroom She lays her jacket over the chair, lines her boots up by the door without thinking about it. The bed smells like clean linen and something faintly floral. Regina’s detergent, probably. Everything in this house smells intentional. Like Regina.
Emma sits on the edge of the mattress for a moment before lying down. The room is quiet, but not empty. She can hear the low tick of the clock in the hall, the faint hum of electricity in the walls. Familiar sounds, now. Sounds she doesn’t have to listen for anymore.
She tells herself she’ll remember this as a favor, not a habit.
Sleep doesn't come easy. That isn’t new. In her defense, she does try. That’s what she tells herself, anyway. She keeps one ear tuned for Henry’s door, like she’s been assigned a role she hasn’t agreed to but won’t refuse.
At some point, she hears Henry cough. Once. Then again.
She holds still, listening.
Footsteps follow a moment later. Soft. Unhurried. A door opens, closes. The sound of someone murmuring too quietly to make out the words. Emma doesn’t get up. She knows Regina will handle it.
The house settles again.
When Emma finally drifts off, it’s with the strange, grounding awareness that she isn’t alone in the house. That if something goes wrong- if Henry wakes up scared, if the coughing comes back- someone else will hear it too.
In the morning, there’s coffee waiting.
Two mugs on the counter. One already filled.
Regina stands at the sink, hands resting on the edge, like she’s been there a while.
She doesn’t comment on it.
Neither does Emma.
2.
Dinner isn't meant to turn into anything.
It starts late because that's just got the day goes. Henry takes too long with his homework, sneaking his phone between the book pages when he thinks no one is looking. But Regina notices, of course she does and sometime around his eighth attempt at beating this next level of Candy Crush, she takes it from him. He pouts, before Regina gives him a look that says, don't start, and promptly decides his history homework is the most interesting thing on the table.
Regina insists on actual vegetables. The fresh ones you buy in the produce section. Emma bought canned green beans once, for Henry. Regina stared it like it personally offended her, then promptly turned to Emma and said it was a "start" which was her polite way of saying she should try again.
Emma winced at that. Mostly because it's true, and partly because that means she'd actually have to conquer her fear of anything that was more than reheating leftovers and boiling noodles in a pan.
Which apparently she can only get right half the time because not too long ago she somehow managed to burn the macaroni noodles she was making for the both of them. Dinner ended up being at Regina's that night.
Henry never lets her live it down and Regina pretends not to feel vindicated about it.
By the time they sit down, it's already dark outside. The moonlight already bleeding into the living room, stretching across the floor, catching on the edge of the couch.
Conversation drifts the way it always does. School, friends, soccer, and a project he’s waited too long to start and the supplies he still needs. He talks around mouthfuls of lasagna which Regina corrects once, before deciding to let it go.
Emma pretends not to notice the way Regina’s gaze softens, the corners of her mouth easing even as she tells him to eat properly, like the fondness slips out before she can stop it. She has to hide her smile before her glass of water before someone notices.
Eventually, the evening dwindles. Plates get cleared, leftovers get put in the fridge, trash gets taken out to the garbage can. Emma insists on doing the dishes so Regina can shower, and ultimately ropes Henry into helping her, much to his dismay.
Later he asks for hot chocolate and Emma finds that she can't say no. She goes about grabbing the milk and hot cocoa mix, making sure to stir the cinammon in drink and on top of the whipped cream, just how Henry likes it.
She notices the tin of tea as she pulls things from the cabinets. She hesitates for a second, then makes Regina a cup of tea too before she can change her mind.
When Regina comes back down stairs, she isn't wearing any socks. Her wet hair falls past her collarbones and sticking to the fabric of her silk pajama top, her face bare of any makeup. Emma looks up, briefly, and forgets to look away.
Regina notices. Of course she does.
She doesn't say anything.
"What's this? I thought you said you were cleaning up the kitchen not adding to the mess," she asks, tone light and teasing, as she gestures to the mugs in Emma's hands and the cocoa powder dusting the countertops.
Emma grins. "Henry wanted cocoa. I made you tea."
Regina stares at the mugs longer than necessary before taking hers, hands wrapping around it like she's trying to steal its warmth. She looks directly at Emma as she takes a rather slow sip.
Emma's pretty sure she knows exactly what she's doing.
"Hm." Regina peers into the mug, a thoughtful expression etched across her face. "You added honey and lemon."
“Yeah,” Emma says. “I know you like it that way.” She doesn’t know when her palms started to sweat or when her chest started to tightened. She blames the heat of the mug and forces herself not to think about it anymore.
Regina looks at her with a soft glint in her eyes before nodding once. "Thank you. Her voice is soft in a way that has nothing to do with volume.
Henry insist on a movie night. His excuse being "it's late anyway so what's the harm?" Very boyish and teenage of him, Emma thinks.
He decides on Star Wars and Regina makes sure to gently remind they're watching one of those movies, not all three.
Henry scowls before thoughtfully picking Return of the Jedi.
Emma notices the time only when it stops mattering. She tires way sooner than she'd like to admit and at that point, it's too late to pretend she isn't.
Henry yawns rather dramatically, limbs stretching every which way and Regina sends him upstairs without argument. He pauses halfway up the stairs, looks back at them.
"Night,” he says.
“Goodnight,” Emma says.
Regina echoes it a beat later.
The house settles again. It's different this time. Looser.
Emma stands in the kitchen, keys still in her pocket. She should say something. She knows the script. Thanks for dinner. I should head out. See you tomorrow.
She doesn’t say any of it.
Regina rinses a mug at the sink. Sets it in the drying rack. She doesn’t look at Emma when she speaks. “You can stay, if you want.”
It’s not framed like an offer. More like a fact being acknowledged. Like she knows why Emma is hesitating.
Emma nods. “Okay.”
There's no guest room mention this time.
Emma borrows one of Regina’s shirts without asking. It’s soft in a way that suggests it’s been washed too many times. She folds her jeans over the chair like she’s done it before.
Because she has.
Regina moves through the house like she’s not aware of it happening. Like this isn’t new information. She checks the locks. Turns off the lights. Pauses briefly outside Henry’s room and when Emma lies down, the house is already quiet.
In the morning, Regina pours coffee while Emma stands at the counter, still half asleep. This time, Regina doesn’t fill the second mug until Emma’s there to take it.
Emma takes the mug automatically- and only after does she realize she didn't ask. Their fingers brush.
Neither of them says anything.
3.
It happens after a long day.
Not a disastrous one. Just heavy in the way days can be when too many small things stack up without ever tipping into crisis. A town meeting that drags. An argument that circles without landing. Henry overtired and snappish, pushing past his limits and then embarrassed by it afterward.
By the time Regina locks the front door, the house feels wound tight.
Henry goes to bed without protest. That alone is telling. Regina lingers in the doorway longer than necessary, listening to his breathing even out before closing it softly behind her.
Emma stays in the living room, elbows braced on her knees, staring at the dark television screen. She hasn’t taken her jacket off. She doesn’t realize she’s still wearing it until Regina passes through the room and pauses.
“You can hang that up,” Regina says, gently. Not corrective. Observational.
Emma shrugs it off and drapes it over the back of the chair. It feels like conceding something, though she’s not sure what.
Regina moves into the kitchen. Fills the kettle. Sets it on the stove. Waits for it to boil. She doesn’t turn on the overhead light- just the small one over the sink, leaving the rest of the room dim.
Emma watches from the couch, wondering when it stopped occurring to her that this might be temporary. How it feels right and not provisional.
The evening stretches on, as evenings tend to do. Whether you want it to or not.
No one mentions the time.
When Regina brings the mugs in, Emma takes one automatically, fingers curling around the ceramic. The heat is grounding and familiar. They sit side by side, close enough that Emma can feel the warmth radiating off Regina’s arm.
The silence tonight is different. Heavier. Less patient.
Emma exhales slowly. “You okay?”
Regina keeps her gaze forward. “I will be.”
It’s not a lie. Just incomplete.
Emma nods like that’s enough. Maybe it is.
They sit there while the tea cools, while the house gradually loosens around them. Regina leans back against the couch, eyes closing briefly. When she opens them again, her shoulders have dropped, just a fraction.
Emma doesn’t move. She’s learned when stillness is a kindness.
After a while, Regina speaks again. “You can take the guest room.”
It’s said neutrally. Carefully. Like she’s offering an option without attaching expectation.
Emma shakes her head before she’s had time to think about it. “I’m fine here.”
The words land between them, soft but undeniable.
Regina hesitates. Just long enough for Emma to notice. Then she nods once and stands.
“I’ll get you a blanket.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
She comes back with two.
Regina hands one to Emma and keeps the other for herself, settling back onto the couch without comment. She tucks her feet up beneath her, shoulder brushing Emma’s. The contact is brief. Then it stays.
Neither of them comments on it.
Regina reaches for the remote and puts something on without asking- a documentary Emma doesn’t recognize, low and unobtrusive, voices measured enough to fade into the background.
Emma watches a few minutes of it. Then less.
The house is quiet enough that Emma can hear the clock in the hall ticking. She listens to Regina’s breathing beside her, shallow at first, then slowly evening out. At some point, Regina exhales and lets her head tip just slightly toward Emma’s shoulder.
Emma freezes.
Then, carefully, she stays exactly where she is.
The documentary keeps going. But they don't.
She sleeps there too. Not deeply, but better than she has in days. Enough that when she wakes, it takes her a moment to remember where she is.
Regina is already awake.
Emma knows because she feels the shift beside her- the careful stillness, the way Regina gathers herself before moving. Emma keeps her eyes closed, breath steady, pretending she hasn’t noticed.
Regina sits like that for a long moment. Long enough that Emma wonders if she’s going to say something.
She doesn’t.
She waits for regret.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, Regina stands quietly, adjusting the blanket where it’s slipped off Emma’s shoulder before moving toward the kitchen.
Later, there’s coffee.
Two mugs. No comment.
Emma doesn’t go home before work.
She stays for breakfast instead.
No one points it out.
4.
Emma lets herself in without thinking about it.
The door clicks shut behind her. It's familiar, like she's been doing it for months, which in a way- she kinda has.
As she steps into the foyer, the warmth wraps around her before she can think about it.
It’s nice, she thinks.
She pauses deliberately, taking in the sensations around her. Henry’s shoes are kicked off by the stairs. There’s music playing softly from the kitchen, something instrumental, unobtrusive. Regina’s choice, obviously. The air smells faintly of garlic. The house feels less like somewhere she's visiting and more like somewhere that fits.
Dinner is already in progress. Chicken sizzling in the pain, the noodles boiling in the pot beside it.
“Hey,” Henry calls from the table. “You’re late.”
Emma drops her keys on the counter. “Traffic.”
Regina glances over her shoulder. “Wash your hands.”
Emma does so without a second thought. She dries her hands and reaches for a mug without looking . Blue, second from the right- and only realizes what she’s done once it’s already in her hand. She pauses for half a second, waiting to be corrected.
Regina doesn’t say anything.
Dinner is easy. Not rushed, not careful. Henry talks through half of it, stops to eat, then starts again. Regina corrects him once about chewing, then lets it go. Emma notices because she always does- not the correction, but the way Regina softens immediately after, like it isn’t something she means to show.
This time, Emma doesn’t look away.
Afterward, Regina stacks plates at the sink. Emma loads the dishwasher without asking, moving around the kitchen like she knows where everything goes. She doesn’t realize she hasn’t checked until she’s already halfway through.
She pauses and looks over to her, expecting Regina to say something. I got it from here, thank you. Thanks for your help, I enjoyed tonight.
But she doesn't. She places the dishes with a normalcy that should scare Emma. But, Regina doesn’t stop her, so Emma continues to rinse the dishes- like this is something they often.
Henry grabs his backpack and heads upstairs. “I’ve got practice tomorrow.”
“Shoes off,” Emma says, automatically.
Henry grins. “You sound like Mom.”
Emma stills, just for a beat. Something warm settling in her chest. She glances at Regina, who doesn't even look up. She doesn’t correct him, either.
Later, Regina pulls a grocery list from the drawer and adds poster board to the bottom. Emma leans over her shoulder without thinking.
“I can grab it,” she says.
Regina nods. “Thanks.”
It takes Emma a moment to realize she’s assumed she’ll be there tomorrow.
They end up on the couch because that’s where they end up now. Regina puts something on- a new documentary, already partway through. One Emma hasn't seen before. She recognizes the narrator’s voice and can’t remember when she learned it.
She tucks her feet beneath her, blanket already within reach. Regina sits beside her, close but not touching.
At some point, Regina drapes the blanket over both of them without looking.
Emma exhales and lets herself settle. Let's herself get consumed with it all. Let's herself enjoy this moment.
The documentary plays. They don’t watch all of it. The house hums around them- pipes shifting, Henry moving upstairs, the clock ticking steadily in the hall.
Emma realizes she hasn’t thought about leaving. Not once.
When the screen goes dark, neither of them reaches for the remote. Still, they stay.
It occurs to her later that she never decided to stay. She just… did.
5.
It’s a morning.
Not rushed. Not slow. Just ordinary enough that Emma doesn’t notice she hasn’t checked the time yet.
She’s barefoot in the kitchen, one hip leaned into the counter, watching Regina crack eggs into a bowl with practiced efficiency. Henry is already dressed, backpack slung over one shoulder, scrolling on his phone with the exaggerated focus of someone waiting to be told to hurry up. The coffee smells right. Toast pops up behind her, startling her slightly.
Emma reaches for a plate and stops halfway, glancing at Regina out of habit.
Regina doesn’t look up. “Go ahead.”
Emma does.
They move around each other easily. Passing dishes, stepping aside without comment, navigating the space like they’ve done it a thousand times already. Emma pours coffee into a mug that isn’t really hers, but has been in her hand often enough that the distinction feels academic. Regina slides it closer without looking.
Henry clears his throat loudly. “I’m gonna miss the bus.”
“You’re not,” Regina says. “Eat.”
Emma snorts before she can stop herself.
Henry grins, pleased, and finishes his breakfast at record speed. He grabs his jacket, kisses Regina’s cheek, then pauses in the doorway.
“Bye, Emma.”
“Bye,” Emma says.
The door shuts behind him. The house exhales.
For a moment, neither of them moves.
Regina sets the pan in the sink. The sound is soft, final. Emma reaches for the towel out of habit, drying her hands even though they aren’t wet, then leans back against the counter again. She’s close. Close enough that the space between them feels intentional.
“Thanks for staying,” Regina says.
It’s casual. Almost absentminded. Like she’s saying it because it’s true, not because it needs acknowledgment.
Emma frowns. “I live-”
She doesn’t finish. The words don’t line up the way she expects them to.
Regina turns fully toward her.
There’s no hesitation in it. No careful measuring. Just certainty.
Regina smiles, small and sure, like this is simply the way things are. “You live here.”
Not softly. Not emphatically. Calm. Steady. Like she's stating the weather. Like stating a fact that doesn’t require explanation.
Emma’s breath catches. “I-” She's like a deer in headlights. The words should hit her like a slap in the face. But it doesn't. It doesn't shock her, it doesn't scare her and that's what does it for her. She can't find any words to articulate- well- she's not quite sure what to say. Though, she's pretty sure her brain short circuits momentarily.
Thankfully, she doesn't have to think of anything because Regina doesn’t give her time to argue.
She steps in, slow enough that Emma can see it happening, can stop it if she wants to. She doesn’t. Regina lifts a hand, fingers brushing Emma’s jaw with quiet confidence before leaning in.
The kiss is gentle. Brief. Certain.
Regina’s lips press to hers like this has already been decided, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Emma exhales into it, a quiet, surprised sound, and something in her chest finally settles.
When Regina pulls back, she doesn’t go far. Her forehead rests lightly against Emma’s, her hand still warm at her jaw.
Emma laughs softly, a little breathless. “Okay.”
Regina hums, satisfied. “Good.”
Her thumb brushes once along Emma’s cheek before she steps back, giving her space without taking anything with her.
The kitchen feels exactly the same. Warmer, somehow. Lived in.
Emma grabs her jacket from the hook by the door- not the chair this time. Regina watches her from the counter, arms folded loosely.
“You working late?” Regina asks.
“Probably.”
“Dinner?”
Emma smiles, easy now. “I’ll pick something up.”
Regina nods. “Okay.”
Emma leaves.
She comes back later that night.